Great news! Check out the ‘Cat Tweets’ section for a new Simon’s Cat video, released for Valentine’s Day, which is today in New Zealand. It’s cute, and had me laughing out loud twice. Now if you’re a single person too, you’ll understand how much I hate Valentine’s Day, but this video left me feeling good.

the president has failed to personally express sympathy for Porter’s wives or to condemn partner violence;

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Porter’s background check today (Tuesday 13th US time). What he said completely contradicts the various statements of White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders various. In other words, Sanders lied.

Here is Christoper Wray’s testimony. (Wray is a Trump appointment; he got the job following the firing of James Comey.)

Senator Wyden (D) Oregon: … Was the FBI aware of allegations related to Rob Porter and domestic abuse? And if so, was the White House informed it could affect his security clearance, when were they informed, and who at the White House was informed?

FBI Director Christopher Wray: Well senator, there’s a limit to what I can say about the content of any particular background investigation for a variety of reasons that I’m sure you can appreciate. I would say that the background investigation process involves a fairly elaborate set of standards, guidelines, protocols, agreements etc. that have been in place for 20+ years. And I’m quite confident that in this particular instance the FBI followed established protocols.

Wyden: So was the White House informed that this could affect his security clearance? That’s a “yes” or “no.”

Wray: I can’t get into the content of what was briefed … (Wyden interrupts.)

Wyden: But what were they informed?

Wray: What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March [2017]. And then a completed background investigation in late July [2017]. That soon thereafter, we received request for follow-up inquiry and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November [2017] and that we administratively closed the file in January [2018]. And then earlier this month [February 2018] we received some additional information and passed that along as well.

This is not what Sarah Sanders has been saying. When questioned about the discrepancies today, she passed the blame onto a human resources department within the White House (the personnel security office), which she was quick to point out was not staffed by Trump appointees! As CNNreports:

“The White House personnel security office staffed by career officials received information last year and what they considered to be the final investigative background investigation report in November, but they had not made a final recommendation for adjudication to the White House because the process was still ongoing when Rob Porter resigned,” Sanders said.

But even that statement contradicted claims made days earlier by White House legislative affairs director Marc Short, who on Sunday claimed that FBI officials”have not completed that investigation,” and deputy press secretary Raj Shah, who said last Thursday the FBI’s investigation into Porter was “ongoing.”

“His background investigation was ongoing,” Shah said. “In this instance, in the case of Rob Porter, we relied on the background check investigative process. That process hadn’t been completed, so we were relying on the information that we had.”

As recently as Monday, Sanders also claimed that the White House did not learn “of the extent of the situation involving Rob Porter” until last Tuesday, when the allegations became public.

To be clear, this is the first time this department (the personnel security office) has had a mention in this whole process, and given her track record, it’s hard to know whether what she’s saying is true or not.

In addition, Trump had a couple of chances today to express sympathy for Porter’s victims, or at least make a statement opposing intimate violence, or any kind of violence. He pointedly ignored all questions.

In my post I said that I thought the White House must have known about this before John Kelly was even appointed to the Chief of Staff position, and it turns out that was correct. What I didn’t pick up on, but many journalists are now pointing out, is that White House Legal Counsel Don McGahn surely knew about the issue too. He should have advised about the issues surrounding having so many staff who cannot pass a background check.

However, it is possible that this issue is one that isn’t taken seriously given that senior advisor and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also does not have a full security clearance yet. Whether he will ever be able to get one is probably a moot point as it’s unlikely the president will sack him, at least not for that reason.

I suspect there’s still a lot more to come out about this. I haven’t even looked at Twitter yet today, or watched Anderson Cooper. I’m probably way behind already. I better look at Twitter at least though before I post this, or all you’ll get is old tweets which is a bit disrespectful given you’ve made the effort to check this post out!

Oh, and TRIGGER WARNING. There’s at least one spider in the Creepy-Crawlies tweets so far. I may find more!

Political Tweets

I love Trevor Noah. Here are a couple of great recent clips from his show.

If you prefer Trump to Obama or Hillary Clinton as president because you think he is “bringing on the revolution” you crave, that is a strong indication that you, and people like you, are at no risk in your revolution. The canon fodder don’t owe you any thanks.

Religion Tweets

Why is is that when the terrorist is a Christian, he doesn’t get called a terrorist? Suddenly he’s an activist! As one of the responses (from @mojoagogo) points out:

ACTIVIST: a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change.

TERRORIST: a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Activists don’t plan attacks.

And where are Trump’s calls for a shut down of all immigration from Christian countries until we can sort this problem out? And if you think that sounds ridiculous, remember that all murders by Muslim extremist terrorists since 9/11 were by people that were either born in the US, or were from countries noton the list of countries Trump named in his immigration ban.
(Via Ann German.)

As I write there are 277 replies to this article. I went through them. Every one rightly points out that this man is a TERRORIST, not an activist. I wonder if @ABC7Chicago will fix their story? https://t.co/7mrnvi6aZe

Human Rights Tweets

I have no problem with social justice I have a problem with the toxicity of those who do things under the guise of social justice when in reality it’s them oppressing others for their own selfish, personal agendas. https://t.co/FKKR iaEAPq

I watch Fox News in horror while GOP representatives call children who were brought to the US by their parents without visas “illegals.” I understand why they would want to deport criminals who came to the country illegally as adults, but most of the others are not a problem. In fact, they’re a net benefit to the country. It’s good to see others speaking up for them.
(Via Ann German.)

Geography Tweets

They’ve just had the annual ceremony to move the marker for the South Pole. It moves ten metres every year due to the movement of the ice.

The 2018 Geographic South Pole marker. Previously I had noted the yearly ceremony to move the marker every year, due to the ice sheet moving ~10-meters / year, but only included a picture of the old marker. Here is the 2018 version! #science#southpole#antarcticapic.twitter.com/3O8gWwYOvj

16 Responses to “Update on the Rob Porter Scandal (plus Tweets)”

Like they say, so much depends on whose ox is being gored. Not only are liberals nonplussed these days by abuses of power, domestic surveillance and secret warrants — now I gather they want multinational corporations to wield their massive unchecked power to suppress political dissent! What a Topsy-Turvy world.

Notwithstanding the best efforts of the corrupt liberal media to blow smoke, the contours of the Obama regime’s malfeasance are slowly coming to light. The abuse of the IRS, the State Department, the Department of Justice and the FBI for political ends; the sandbagging of the Clinton investigation to protect both her and Obama; as well as the shameless complicity of the sycophantic media throughout — are fusing into one malignant scandal of historic proportion.

A solid majority (55%) now believes that Obama improperly surveiled the Trump campaign, and wants a special counsel to investigate.

There is less evidence for an Obama scandal than Trump personally having done something that could lead to prosecution over collusion. Dodgy business dealings are another matter.

Not all polling agencies are created equal, and public opinion is not a valid reason for an investigation. There needs to be proper evidence on which to base an investigation. That’s what the whole Nunes memo thing is about – some Republicans insisting that the courts granted a warrant on bad evidence. They are wrong of course. How they imagine four different Republican appointed judges were all fooled is beyond me.

I’m a little concerned to see Unilever denouncing “fake news, hate speech and divisive content”. Large corporations are generally quite conservative when they reveal their political attitudes. Their idea of what constitutes fake news, hate speech, and divisive content could be a lot different from my own. One area I think this might be likely is the campaign of X Muslims to criticize Islam for it’s 7th century values. Yes it is divisive but should FB be censoring it?

Good point. Fake News -fair enough, and that’s what I was basing my support on. Hate speech and divisive content are a bit more tricky. I was thinking of stuff that incites violence or recruits to terrorist organisations. I’d just been watching a news item about an algorithm that can tell the difference between a news story about DAESH and a recruitment video. Thus I was thinking about that when I wrote my comment.

It’s nice to see these “animations”. I was some of them first hand on our trip through southern France last year. Lascaux has some very nice reconstructions of the cave with projected images showing the suggested movement. Amazing to think the artists were thinking about representing movement and gesture. They produced these works over a 20 thousand year period which is truly amazing in itself.

One of the first things that must come to mind is that Donald Trump could not get any kind of security clearance in the United States just like many of his appointees. I also see that you have a few viewers that must be locked on to the Trump News channel, also known as Fox news. Someone should wake them up and tell them they are looking directly at fake news every time they tune in to that stuff. Now, today, 18 Feb. 2018 we have absolute proof from Trumps own Administration that yes, the Russians were heavily involved in affecting our 2016 elections and doing everything you can possibly think of to get Trump elected. Good Job Russia, keep up the good work because you know that Trump will do nothing to stop you. And by the way, great job congress.